Out of the Country

[ink_ling]

fiddle: toy: manipulate manually or in one's mind or imagination.

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I have just started reading In the Country of Country: People and Places in American Music, a series of travelogues and biographies about the people and places that originate and sustain "authentic" country music

Comments

[kauko]

I stopped listening to popular music years ago. It all started to seem shallow, inane, vapid, etc.

[ink_ling]

Question: How do you define "popular"?

[kauko]

It is pretty vague, isn't it. I guess, popular as in most of the stuff that would be played on VH1 or MTV, on major radio stations. The kind of stuff that makes a lot of money or hits the top of the charts. Could even go with the literal meaning of the word, popular as in what most people listen to.

[ink_ling]

So do you think it's the industry itself that poisons the quality of the work? Or is it simply that common taste is coarse? Or is over-exposure of otherwise quality music responsible for deadening our responsiveness to it?

[sunsmogseahorse]

You have heard me opine on this. I recently commented in djmrswhite's journal that I'd like to see Tammy Wynette kick Faith Hill's ass. I find it telling that hat-music (an established term) aka "young country" was popularized and made uber-profitable by the Clear Channel company, owner of an inordinate number of radio stations, daddy-to-FCC's-bitch, and friend of W. These are also the people who organized mass record burnings of the Dixie Chicks' albums when they expressed a poor opinion on going to war against Iraq

[ink_ling]

Haha! Dawidoff actually uses the term "hat music" liberally. I like it!

I was also thinking of other venues, too: Our WEVL (a local listener-run radio station) offers quite a bit of programming that includes classic as well as contemporary (but not so commercially successful) country. And I assume there's a lot available (as your example attests) streamed on-line as well. (And I'd prolly listen to it save for my limping, decrepit dial-up with no speakers.)

I talked about this with my boss yesterday, too -- she's a big classic country fan; I mentioned that a lot of the stuff I really like is now being labeled "neo-traditional" and the term "country" has been largely hijacked by music that is decidedly not "country". She seemed happy to surrender the word

[ladyinthecanoe]

I'm going to take this on the "music in general" tip. :)

I don't think it's necessarily hard to find music that matters. (And that's a pretty wide term for me -- I like a balance of music that will simply shake my booty as well as shake my soul.) I think record companies and conglomerate radio giants, with manufacturing and pushing their idea of the handful of artists they think will generate money, have made it very easy for people to be lazy about it. You just have to look to the side and around that behemoth, and sometimes not very far, to find it. I'm thinking along the lines of some of my favorites that wouldn't necessarily fit Country, but would folksy integrity and the personal experience: Patty Griffin, Neko Case, Ani Difranco. None, I think, could be considered mainstream by the strictest definitions, they get next to nil "popular" radio play, but tons of people know who they are and all have huge followings. And they are extremely relevant, imo

[ink_ling]

I have a question for you: Do you think songs are an art? I know that A word is dicier than Adultery, but what I mean is this: I believe there are paintings, literary works, films, symphonies, etc., that so re-train our way of looking, thinking, seeing, listening to the world that we are opened up to new possibilities and directions for ourselves, not just as individuals but as whole cultures.

Do you think songs do or can do that? And if so, is there a lot of that out there?

(I'm not saying my phrase "music that matters" has to be taken this way, but this is one of the primary ways I was thinking of it: music -- primarily songs -- that really match the lasting contributions of other works of art. And I should say that I'm not sure of my own answer to this yet! :).)

Hehe: There are more things I'd like to say to qualify this humdinger of a question, but I would rather hear what you have to say first! :)

[ladyinthecanoe]

Yeah -- ART is a big term, innit? :) But yes, by the meaning you put forth, I do believe songs are a major form of art. I made a post somewhat recently waxing nostalgic about how much music and particular songs and artists I heard, through a lot of my parents' collection, put a huge stamp on me as a person, makes me to this day open and eager to listen to practically anything. I want to be pushed aurally. Granted, that's an individual's example, but I do also believe songs have an amazing power to influence whole cultures

[ink_ling]

Sometimes I think it may be more a musicians' body of work that's culturally influential. This really strikes me as a crucial point. It makes me think of songs in a similar light as poems. A single poem may be incredibly rich, pack a wallop in a tiny fist, just a single song might. But it's the accumulation of a variety of such poems or songs that allows the artist's particular vision to become evident

[ink_ling]

You made me laugh out loud when I read this response first last night! I love the different angle of your answer here, especially this: the author of the piece you mention in your post seems to me to be yet another one of those sentimentalist who either remember or long for the days when their own taste was validated by popular culture.

I want to ask you a couple curious questions, though:

Do you think that -- just as the musical genre has changed with time -- that also the market or industry that distributes it has also changed in ways that make a big difference. After some thought, I started thinking that surely the market that promoted and aired Hank Williams is different than the multi-media market that does the same for Kenny Chesney today. And if so, what difference does that market change have on the music and how it is received and enjoyed?

You also mention the necessity of a generational understanding of these kinds of cultural shifts. Would you say that music -- as a popular genre -- is usually about addressing a

[bleepkeeper]

I don't think that the music industry has changed all that much -- it's always been about making money -- although the methods have. What has changed is that country (or hip hop, or house, or whatever) has moved from a marginal and largely ignored position to a heavily commercialized role. I'm sure there's a lot of lousy, super-commercial western swing from back in the day, most of which has been forgotten by now.

[ink_ling]

I think the methods make a big difference. The visibility of the singer-performer is amped up and the presentation is more easily yoked to product advertisement so that celebrity and peripheral sales potential eclipse talent and even audience identification. I think, for example, there's a big difference in being on, say, "The Ralph Emery Show" and going from American Idol to a commercial spot to a movie deal and to easily guaranteed poistions in payola-insured radio hit lists, and subsequent fan/collectibles product releases with your name attached.

What I'm saying is that, even now, both Austin City Limits and American Idol are about making money, but their very different methods and scales effect their performers, audiences, receptions, and genres immeasurably.

[champdaddy]

that is a scary pic of Hank Williams...

[ink_ling]

Hahaha! I'm glad you picked up on that! And that is exactly why I chose it: It scares me good!